Translation byñjayantī

[dadio]

Hi,

I'm investigating a piece of text from this site: https://www.ancient-buddhist-texts.net/ ... iation.htm

When I came acrose this centence: "Atthaṁ byañjayantī ti byañjanā."; I noticed something...

so, please correct me if I'm wrong... byañjayantī is the present participle of byañjayati? Being feminine, it should agree with a feminine subject. But there isn't one...

Help will be greatly appreciated.

Greetings,

Dominique.

[Sam Vara]

Hi,

I'm investigating a piece of text from this site: https://www.ancient-buddhist-texts.net/ ... iation.htm

When I came acrose this centence: "Atthaṁ byañjayantī ti byañjanā."; I noticed something...

so, please correct me if I'm wrong... byañjayantī is the present participle of byañjayati? Being feminine, it should agree with a feminine subject. But there isn't one...

Help will be greatly appreciated.

Greetings,

Dominique.

Do you know what the verb actually means? I can't find it anywhere. Rather than a present participle, it looks like the third person plural. The ī is the lengthened vowel before the ti, meaning it's the end of a quote, rather than agreeing with anything feminine.

Try it like that (if you've got the meaning of the verb) and see if it makes sense that way.

[ssasny]

Atthaṁ byañjayantī ti byañjanā

The verb can be found in PED under:
Vyañjayati Vyañjayati [vi+añjati, or añjeti] to characterise, denote, express, indicate

So, "byañjayantī" is a 3rd person plural verb, with the final i lengthened since it comes up against the end quote marker 'ti'. "They indicate"
The object of the verb is "Atthaṁ", "the meaning".

So the sense of the sentence is, 'Consonants indicate the meaning'

Another way of expressing this, using English/Latin, is that con-sonants sound with the vowels, giving them specific sense.

[dadio]

Thanks for your help you both! I was making it more difficult than it actualy was.